Researchers have discovered what may be the
earliest toilet in Southeast Asia, giving clues as to how the region
evolved from a traditional hunter gatherer society to a farming
community.

AsianScientist (Jun. 18, 2012) – The possible discovery
of the earliest toilet in Southern Vietnam could give up clues about how
Southeast Asia evolved from a traditional hunter gatherer society to a
farming community, new research from The Australian National University
reveals.

Dr. Marc Oxenham led a team of Australian and Vietnamese specialists
on a seven-week archaeological excavation of a 3,300 to 3,700 year old
Neolithic village site in Southern Vietnam earlier this year.

‘Rach Nui’ is a five-meter tall ancient human-made mound surrounded
by small tidal streams and mangrove swamps. The site is about 30 km
south of modern-day Ho Chi Minh City.

The team believe they found Vietnam’s earliest latrine when they
stumbled across more than 30 preserved feces belonging to humans and
dogs that contained fish and shattered animal bones.

“A detailed analysis of these will provide a wealth of
information on both the diet of humans and dogs at Rach Nui, but also on
the types of parasites each had to contend with,” Oxenham said.

Oxenham said about 4000 years ago, major economic, behavioral, and
genetic changes led to Southeast Asians swapping a lifestyle of hunting,
gathering and fishing for farming.

“These hunter gatherers were highly mobile, always moving
from place to place to find food resources. The agriculturists had a
more sedentary, stable existence, and because they stayed in one place,
they were able to grow crops. And of course, population size grows with a
much more stable food source.”
“So what we tend to find in places like Southern Vietnam is a lot
more evidence of these people in the landscape. Because they were
sedentary and the population size was expanding, they left mounds like
Rach Nui with evidence of their lives. Their trash built up over time in
once place.”

Oxenham said the team uncovered the remnants of multiple living or
housing platforms, built up over many generations from crushed shell,
pottery and dried branches, fired to produce cement-like floors.

The team also found betel nut – a red palm fruit chewed extensively
in Southeast Asia for stimulant properties – and foxtail millet – the
first time foxtail has ever been found to have been grown in Vietnam at
this very early period of time.

“The presence of foxtail millet is really exciting. It
not only confirms that this community was growing domesticated crops at
this time, but this variety of millet is from China and may provide
clues into the origins of farming in Southern Vietnam, and indeed,
Southeast Asia as a whole,” Oxenham said.

Oxenham added that the menu of the Rach Nui community differed from
other Neolithic communities, and, apart from pigs and dogs, tended to
include animals found in swampy environments such as crocodiles,
turtles, macaques and monitor lizards, catfish, shellfish, and mud
crabs.